His sword was there to meet mine as my katana sliced through the air with deadly force. He pulled his arm back in a surprising move and my arm continued with my momentum setting me off balance. He swung up and over me as if he would come down from on top and get my neck that way, but I allowed the forward pull to carry me and pushed my body all the way around, spinning on one foot. Our swords connected again and we were back to clanging metal and fancy footwork.

After Jude’s hallway revelations today, I left school with the pretense of a relapse of the plague and came home to fill my parents and Jupiter in. They were as shattered as I was.

But one good thing had come through all of this- I was motivated to train my ass off until I was the best, until there was nobody better than me.

And I wasn’t going to sit idly by and wait for my eighteenth birthday, growing soft under the double-edged protection clause. Hell, no. I was going to fight. I was going to engage as often and as violently as I could until every Fallen across the universe cowered at the sound of my name.

They wouldn’t be able to touch me while I collected their heads.

Ok, that was a little gruesome.

With my new manifesto tattooed on my soul, the one I intended to keep eternally, I fought with a strength and focus I had never known before. My wrists were fluid, loose extensions of arms that were strong and capable of killing. My feet were fast, my legs were steady, my core was taut with the right kind of tension and my eyes took everything in with lightning quickness.

I was becoming the Star I was born to be.

Jupiter met my blows with shocking agility. He was something like nine-hundred years old, but as spry as any Warrior my age. He was fast and skilled with his broadsword, which was why he was currently kicking my ass. His sword was freaking heavy! And every time he landed a blow on top, I would struggle to hold his weight up with my thinner, longer shaped katanas.

I flipped through the air, tucking my head and kicking my feet around gracefully. I landed on my feet but had already spun around to meet his thrust. Our swords clashed and slid apart. I moved quickly to the left and ducked as he swung wide and low. I lunged out and cut towards his legs which he avoided by jumping up and back. In the blink of an eye, he had somersaulted forward through the air again and rendered a blow so forceful that my blade actually shattered.

Without missing a beat, I spun on the inside of his arm, plucked the dagger from my thigh and held both the broken blade and my deadly little one to opposite sides of his throat.

“I have you here,” Jupiter pointed out. He tapped me on the back of the neck.

I smirked confidently, “Ah, but you can’t slice my head off without catching your own. But I am perfectly capable of taking your head with the help of my special friends here.” I emphasized my point by scratching his neck on either side with the tips of my blades.

“Very well done, Starling,” Jupiter smiled at me.

Slow clapping sounded behind us; I spun out to face our spectator. Although by the lazy pull and release of his hands, I had an idea of who it would be.

And just as I suspected, Jude stood, leaning against a tree, watching us with bored disinterest. He was wearing that half, amused grin that seemed to constantly fix his face and his jeans were slung even lower than earlier.

Seriously, get the boy a hamburger, his pants need help.

“That was…. impressive.” But he said it in a way that made it seem like it was the exact opposite of impressive.

Jude pushed off the tree with his shoulder and walked slowly forward. There was a cigarette dangling from his lips and his hands were shoved in his pockets. He looked…. dangerous.

And I hated that.

I wanted him to look like nothing.

I just wanted him to disappear and stop reminding me of everything I lost.

“What are you doing here?” I sighed.

He grinned at me. Again. It was like he forgot he was Fallen. He seemed way too happy to be filled with malice and Satan. Possibly he was addicted to energy drinks.

“I came to check on you.” He stopped just before us and quirked a brow at Jupiter. “You are not from this planet, old man.”

“Why are you here, Jude?” I bit out, feeling frustrated and overprotective of Jupiter.

“I already told you.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off Jupiter yet, and it was getting awkward.

“Alright, then why did you come to check on me?”

“Stella, we’ve been over this how many times? I had to make sure nothing happened to you. That you weren’t kidnapped on the way home from school today, or didn’t break a nail in the aftermath of your chores, or decide to off yourself when the bleak reality of your situation set in. That was probably the one I was most concerned about.” His eyes flickered over to me from Jupiter but then went right back to Jupiter’s red eyes. “Let me guess…. Mars?”

“Not even close,” Jupiter grunted.

“That’s too bad,” Jude smiled sadistically. It was the first time I had seen his true mask of evil. “Mars was one of my favorite planets.”

Jupiter took an aggressive step forward and I caught him by the wrist. “He’s promised not to hurt me. Don’t let him antagonize you.”

Jupiter seemed to take my advice immediately- well, until he opened his mouth to yell at Jude in a language neither of us understood. Although he fought like a man much younger than his age, he was now, currently, acting like the crotchety old man that he was.

Jude snapped his fingers and dropped his head back. “Jupiter! I should have known. I knew those red eyes were familiar, I just couldn’t…”

“Jude,” I interrupted with a hand on his bicep. We both looked down where my hand rested on his bare skin and I immediately withdrew. It was a familiar gesture, a friendly gesture and Jude was neither to me. “Were you really just checking in on me? Because as you can see, I’m fine now. So why don’t you scamper on home, back to the pits of Hell you crawled out of.”

“You’re adorable when you get all mouthy,” he cooed instead. “I’m starting to get turned on.”

“And I’m starting to get annoyed.”

He blew smoke in my face, just to be a bastard.

“This is the third-party?” Jupiter demanded, looking over Jude with an entirely different expression. “This one?

“Yes,” I laughed. “Believe me, I was as surprised as…”

“I know your parents,” Jupiter cut me off. He was staring at Jude now, only this time Jude was

hesitant to look back at him.

Jude swallowed once, stomped out his cigarette and then turned the entire force of his blasé attitude on Jupiter. “Really? That’s nice, because I don’t.”

“It’s a shame what happened to you.”

“How did you recognize me?”

“The tattoo on your neck,” Jupiter pointed to the side of Jude’s collarbone, where there was, in fact, a half-dollar sized tattoo of two swords making an X. One sword had the word “Verity” scrawled across it and the other said, “Honor.” It was usually hidden by his t-shirts, but tonight he was wearing a long sleeved Henley with the buttons open, gaping at the throat. “Your parents gave that to you when you were a child.”

“Well, if you see them again, tell them I miss them,” Jude ground out bitterly and then barked out a derisive laugh. “Just stopped by to make sure you were in top order, Stella. And now that I see you’ve survived the afternoon, I’ll let you get back to…. this.”

“How generous of you,” I curtsied to be a jackass, but Jude only waved it on as if he were already bored.

He turned around and walked away from us- in the opposite direction of the house. He pulled his ever-present pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and lit up while he walked away. He raised two fingers as a way of goodbye without turning around; I hated him infinitely more in that moment.

“Now that’s interesting,” Jupiter commented dryly. “Do you know who that is, Stella?”

“The bane of my existence?” I asked sweetly.

Jupiter chuckled and then began collecting the different swords that lay in discarded piles all over the ground. “That was Jude Michaels.”

“I did know that much.”

“He was kidnapped as a child- straight from the Lower Realms. Later, the kidnapper was caught. Apparently he was a traitor, intent on stealing an entire generation of Warriors for the Fallen. He only managed to steal Jude before they got him. But he never said what he did with the child.”

“What did the Council do to the traitor?” I asked, horrified by the story. I couldn’t imagine they would give up looking for Jude, or that his parents would allow the traitor to be executed before he gave up where their son was.

“The Council didn’t do anything,” Jupiter explained seriously. “The day before he went to trial, he was found beheaded in his cell. Someone else got to him before the Council could ask a single question.”

“And they didn’t find that suspicious?” Or had I just watched too many episodes of Law and Order?

“Of course they did. The investigation continued, but nothing else ever came up and the boy never resurfaced. They had no idea which planet to search or which direction of the Universe he was taken to. But that tattoo… I would remember it anywhere. Jude’s father is an Archangel, his mother sits on the Council. They have never stopped looking for him.”

“They will probably be a little disappointed with how he turned out,” I sighed. He had a sad story, I could give him that.

Jupiter was silent for a few moments, deep in thought. Finally, and in an amused voice, he said, “Fallen by consequence, not by choice. That makes an interesting study.”

True. It was rare, maybe even unheard of for a child to be raised into the Fallen culture without making a conscious decision to join their ranks. Fallen was a choice- even they knew that. Which was why Seth had been spared when he was younger. They didn’t, couldn’t, have children for this very reason. They were cursed to be barren, since the beginning of time.

“He’s obviously adapted,” I shrugged it off. Jude was just as evil as the rest of them. And the only reason we weren’t fighting to the death right now was because he was under contract to keep me alive. And my new mission in life was to save Seth. It didn’t matter if he chose this life or was forced into it; it was his life now and he was as Fallen as the rest of them.

Jupiter and I packed up the rest of the weapons and headed back to the house for a late dinner. He stayed and ate with my family. It was nice to have him there. He was like this souvenir of Seth and I knew he didn’t want to go home to an empty house. He even stayed to help my mom clean up.

My heart broke a little bit more with his heartache. I wasn’t the only one gutted by Seth’s disappearance and the news that he’d given up his soul for me. Why didn’t he talk to me about it first? Why did he just rush off and act so impulsively? There had to be more to the story than just his concern for me. We were in this together. Something happened for him to leave me.